Back in Russia, Mikhail knew that soon the satellites of the world’s great military superpowers would confirm the broken reports each country was getting. They would find six of the long-range missile silos open. And soon Russia’s advanced ABM radar would detect six inbound signatures heading in its direction.

For his part, Agent Mikhail Kovalenko was not yet part of the upper echelons of the Strategic Command Force. The relatively unimportant analysis group he was assigned to had not been called to handle this crisis but Mikhail needed to be involved. He needed to stop the Russians from going too far in their response. He needed to make sure the wishes and needs of the Council were adhered to, and that a full nuclear conflagration was not sparked by this unprecedented action.

So while one subroutine in his machine mind called his colleagues, and another handled the task of driving his car for him, the personality that governed the entire machine mind used the relay in the back of his car to connect to yet another emergency Council meeting, the second in two days.

<Welcome.>

<We have called this emergency Council meeting to discuss the important events unfolding in Pakistan. It should be noted by all members of the Council that this is not a complete session of the Council. We have not had contact from Agent Shahim Al Khazar since the beginning of the attack on the Peshawar Army Base, despite ongoing attempts to locate him.>

They all looked about the virtual meeting room. Never before had they met as an incomplete group. It was disconcerting. John remained silent. He knew more than the rest of the group what Shahim was up to, but he could not know how successful the other Agent had been. So he literally and proverbially sat back a waited.

<At this time we must assume he is either destroyed, severely damaged, or unable to move from his current location. All the above options seem unlikely, but Agent Shahim was last seen entering an area with significant firepower and weapons-grade nuclear materials so all possibilities must be considered. We believe it should be a high priority of the Council to discover what has happened to Agent Shahim Al Khazar, but before we can attend to that we have an even greater issue to discuss.>